


white blood

by serendipitea



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Pain, Sad Ending, just pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26149111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipitea/pseuds/serendipitea
Summary: Zuko's final act is taking lightning for Katara.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 59
Kudos: 134





	white blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [st4rryeyed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/st4rryeyed/gifts).



> this one shot is dedicated to bella, who asked for this very threateningly hehe<3
> 
> (fic is named after oh wonder's song of the same name, for those who like listening to music while reading)

Zuko lays on the ground, aching in every inch of his body as heat bursts through him. He isn’t sure if there is some fire that was shot into his blood or if these are ghost pains greeting him in the aftermath.

The aftermath…

The end of all of this.

He can hear Azula somewhere, struggling and yelling as the sound of metal sharply clangs in the air. He smells carbon and scorched skin. How familiar.Just like that last time, three years ago, in this same red and black hell.

He remembers his hope. The trust he had in his father was so strong. He thought that his father wouldn’t publicly humiliate him, that he wouldn’t bring down upon him his fury. And that was why he stayed in place, frozen in submission as he begged for forgiveness. When the hand came down, he didn’t flinch because he still believed— he still thought his father loved him enough to not hurt him. The fire spit out, his palm pressed down and Zuko couldn’t remember the rest from the pain.

This pain, bestowed upon him by his sister, is different. Maybe worse because he knows the only end to it is dark and cold and far, far away.

It must be something like literary genius he thinks, to be burned by your father and then your sister.

His heart stutters as he heaves a breath every other minute, his chest aches and it feels like his ribs will collapse into himself. He thinks he might be twitching from the electricity that jolted through him, but he can’t feel it. He can feel nothing and everything all at once.

Over the blood rushing through his body, he hears footsteps running towards him.

“Zuko!”

It stands to mean nothing, but he feels better just hearing her voice.

He can’t feel Katara’s hands when she presses them to his torso. Water glows but Zuko can barely make it out, the world is dimming and he would much rather see her face before he has to confront death.

Her brows are creased together and her eyes are narrowed in fear and concentration as she wills herself to heal as much as possible all at once.

“Zuko? I need you to hold on, please,” her voice is commanding, but he can hear the desperation.

“Katara…” his throat is tough and his mouth is dry, he can barely make the words out, “I can’t.”

She whips her head to him eyes blown wide with something like anger, hands still braced on his skin to heal him.

“Yes you can,” she forces out.

“No…”

Now there is water in her eyes. Zuko can always see her eyes clearly, even now when all the light and colour seems to be pulling away from his vision. Even at the end of everything, she is an unrelenting force that stands as everything crumbles. Blue and bright and piercing and tough and beautiful. That is Katara.

“Just focus on my voice, listen to me. Don’t close your eyes.”

His eyes sting but it is from exhaustion. It isn’t from sadness at all. He thinks he learned too well to suppress it for the sake of others. He can’t let Katara’s last memory of him be even more harrowing than it already must be. To cry in front of her would be to scar her. And Zuko can’t disfigure any bit of her perfect soul.

To forget him would be better. He knows that as fact.

So he reminds himself, in these last moments, he can’t tell her the thoughts that have been crawling their way up his throat, begging to leave his mouth for weeks. He can’t tell her how she is the strongest person he knows, in every sense of the word. He can’t tell her how he’ll miss her smile and her laugh and her blush. He can’t tell her that he thinks what little time they had together was worth all the pain. He can’t tell her he would take a thousand more lightning strikes in a thousand more life times for her.

And he can never tell her he loves her.

She presses harder, brows scrunching together as she tries her best to heal. To fix. To save.

But nothing escapes death’s clutches. His skin is just as burnt as it was before, his body is still burning like he’s been thrown in a bonfire, his mind is still running like he is poisoned and his heart is still jumping like it wants to leave his body.

Zuko musters all the energy left in his body for her, he lifts his hand trailing his fingers on her arms before he rests his hand on top of hers.

The water falls away as she looks back to him, her face is screwed up and her cheeks are wet.

“It’s okay,” he assures her.

Katara shakes her head, “Nothing will happen to you. I just need more time, just please wait. Just wait, Zuko. Please, Zuko. Just wait for me.”

He curls his fingers around hers and he takes a long breath, “Don’t waste your energy on me. You need to let the others know. Uncle will have to take the crown now and—”

“Stop!” she’s furious at his words, “Stop it. You’re going to be fine. You’re going to get better. You’re going to be Fire Lord. You’re going to end the war. You’re going to be happy. You're going to be with me.”

She pulls away from his grasp and takes a deep breath. Closing her eyes she hovers her hands above him, twisting them this way and that. Closing and opening her palms. Winding her fingers in the air.

Bloodbending.

Zuko remembers.

But there is no full moon. There is no hope.

She tries regardless, like she can fight nature and will her bending to work all by herself. He watches. He has always known her to be so talented, so strong willed. So perfect.

The sound of her consistent breathing calms him. Here in this dark world, he almost feels at home with Katara.

And it feels safe enough to leave now.

“Zuko! Open your eyes!” her voice is sharp.

She sounds like she’s telling him off for a stupid mistake in the kitchen, or for pushing Aang too hard in training. Memories of his short time spent with his new found family flood his mind. But at the forefront of it all is her. He sees her bending in the ocean, sparring with him, bickering with Sokka, fighting with Toph, teaching Aang, learning from Suki. He remembers every word she’s ever spoken to him, he’s happy to have these remembrances to keep eternally.

It is bittersweet, he thinks, to have known Katara and to know he will never have her.

He tries his best to listen to her demands, head screaming at him as it throbs in anger when he looks to her.

“You’re going to be fine,” she shifts him, lifting his head to place in her lap, carding his hair back from his forehead, “Please, just wait, just wait.”

“Katara…”

Her lip wobbles and she blinks away the water blurring her vision, “Yes?”

There is still one more thing. One thing he wants so badly to ask that nothing in the world can stop him. He can’t rest without it. He has to know.

“I hope…” he lifts his hand to hold hers, “I hope I made it up to you.”

Confusion strikes her face. She can’t understand what he means, what there is to make up, what she should be accepting.

But when she looks — _really_ looks — into his eyes, golden and swirling with pain, she remembers.

_What can I do to make it up to you?_

And she hates it, because all of it comes back. She sees her yelling and threatening and angry. She sees his determination, his desperation, his eagerness in the face of it all.

Even after that trip, he was cautious and afraid and shy. He never teased too much or went too far. He would never follow after her, unless invited to. He wouldn’t sit with her when he would accidentally catch her staring up at the moon at midnight, unless she said she wanted him to. He would never talk about his mother, unless she pried it out of him. He would listen and wait and understand. And that was all.

He was always wary, and she thought it was because he never wanted to overstep on the trust he barely managed to win over.

But she understands now, there was something else he wanted — that he wasn’t sure if he _really_ received.

Her forgiveness.

Even after hearing it, even after seeing it in her actions, he still didn’t believe it was his to have.

She wonders if the reason he doesn’t think she’d forgiven him, is because he never forgave himself.

“Zuko, don’t say that,” she shakes her head quickly, “You don’t have to hope. You did— You already did make it up to me.”

He doesn’t respond, eyes watching her blankly.

“I promise!” she is yelling now, because he has to know.

She wants to believe he will live through this, that she will get to see him smile a million more times like he did during those stolen nights they rarely got. She wants to tell herself that someone will come. Aang or Sokka or Toph or Suki or Iroh or her father or someone — just _anyone —_ and they will fix this. They will save him. Because she can’t. Because nothing she does will work.

But doubt poisons her mind and she tells herself that he can’t leave him thinking she still hates him, that she still blames him for everything. So she has to make sure he knows.

“You did make it up to me. You did that and more. You know that,” she searches her face, heart clenching, “Don’t you?”

His eyes are fixed in their gaze. His mouth doesn’t move.

She pulls his face into her hands, leaning to watch him closely, “Please, Zuko. You have to know it. You have to know.”

Nothing.

And her stomach drops.

_No._

She drops her head to his chest.

Nothing.

“Zuko,” she says like it will bring him back, “Zuko you can hear me, you can see me. Zuko, answer me.”

Katara searches his eyes, looking for life.

Nothing.

“Zuko.”

Nothing.

“Zuko!”

Nothing.

And for very long there is silence. Complete quiet, for the first time in very long. Not even wind blows past the courtyards that have welcomed a coronation and soon will a funeral.

Even Azulasits in silence, head dropped in defeat and perhaps shame. She doesn’t struggle, nor does she scream. Her brother is dead. She knows it is by her hands. Paralyzing is the feeling as she acknowledges, for the first time, the consequences of her actions.

The stillness is broken by Katara’s sobs.

When she holds him, her hands are tight like she refuses to let him go even when he is already gone. When she drops her head to his shoulder, she pretends like she is in his arms one last time, like he is at least gracing her with good bye. When she kisses his forehead, she imagines a different life for them, one where they are happy and together. Because now they can be neither.

For the first time, Zuko goes cold in her arms and Katara’s body is on fire. Her face is drenched in tears and her body is red with exhaustion. She wraps her arms around him, like warming him will start up his heart again. His tunic is battered and damp as she cries, fingers balled into fists around him.

If she could will herself to quieten down she would close her eyes and remember his voice, slow and raspy. She would tell herself that he is still there, that she is helping him up and he is thanking her even though he is the real hero. She would envision a future in which she got to tell him how much he means to her.

But she can’t. She yells and cries and chokes on her own spit, but she doesn’t go quiet. She thinks part of her knows that obsessing over lost futures would undo her completely.

She never leaves this spot in the courtyard. Even when he is pulled from her arms. Even when she is dragged away. Even when she is reunited with her friends and brother. Even when the war is finally announced to be over. Even when she sits on the boat to her voyage home. Even when she watches the world move on.

No, Katara never leaves Zuko.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked this! 
> 
> please let me know your thoughts in the comments!! <3


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